


A Firm Hand

by Contraband



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, F/M, Mentioned Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, Tired Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Top Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:07:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22469848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Contraband/pseuds/Contraband
Summary: Geralt and Yennefer, while on an ambiguous journey somewhere, pause after neither sleeps well, to discuss a fight they had the night before, and how he's planning for things to work with Cirilla once he finds her. Ends with sexy things, but in a "fades to black" kind of way.Mostly an exploration of the characters and relationship. One-shot.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 9
Kudos: 72





	A Firm Hand

Humanity. The need for food, shelter, for validation and for love. To be heard, honored, and remembered. When asked what being human means, they tend to be quick to bring up feats, desires, passions, traditions, and principles. Gods, they do love to cite their principles. But when asked what makes someone not human . . .

Geralt rolled over once again on the narrow cot, carefully shifting his weight to keep it from creaking. 

Nearby, Yennefer slept on her own separate cot, a patchy elk pelt blanketing her. At rest, her eyelids fluttered slightly as she dreamed, and Geralt could see in the rising dawn’s light that her jaw was clenched. Maybe not at rest. Maybe troubled too.

Last night, she had said Geralt had forgotten his humanity, and the entire night, the Witcher had stewed on it. It wasn’t said in anger, and it wasn’t said in ignorance of the weight the words would have. But what it was, he couldn’t understand. And so he turned it, over and over, as he did his own weary body in its bed.

No one needed to tell Geralt that he had forgotten what it was like. He often thought about the patches of memory that he had left, feeling around their jagged edges for the pieces that had been ripped out. He remembered the vulnerability of it, the pulse of it, like a rabbit, quick and warm and afraid. But the things that others spoke of with such pride, when defining their own human experience . . . they were largely foreign to him now.

The light of morning stretched patiently, inch by inch, across their small tent. When it was over his eyes, Geralt would get up.

Yennefer let out a ragged sigh and shifted onto her back. She was still asleep for a moment, but then her arm dropped off the side of the cot, and she jerked it back up with a startled and unusually vulnerable mew. Her eyelashes fluttered as she blinked awake, and then she turned and their eyes locked.

“Have you been awake this entire time?” Yennefer asked, and there was already a casual accusation in her voice. Geralt turned to look up at the roof of the tent instead of her piercing violet gaze.

“Sleeping’s not an easy thing for me.”

“Clearly.” Yennefer sat up and stretched luxuriously, letting the elk pelt bunch up around her lap. “Ugh. I don’t feel like I’ve slept at all, but I know I must have.”

Geralt let out a huff of air in acknowledgment. He knew  _ that  _ feeling well enough.

The tension of the previous night’s conversation hung in the air between them as she stood up, got dressed, and it lingered while she did her hair in the cracked, spotted mirror that she carried in her coat. It draped itself, heavy and warm, like a body, over them both, and Geralt bit his tongue as he repeatedly tried to start it up again and stopped short. 

How could he broach the topic again when he didn’t fully understand what it encompassed? Where did the issue begin, and where were the edges of it? Was it his coldness that she objected to? She was every bit as frigid. Was it his self-serving patterns? She was as much an offender in that regard.

They had begun the verbal duel over Cirilla. It was an old song that they both hated. But it had turned into something else, and that was what confused him. Something deeper, something rooted in her private thoughts, had to explain this.

“I haven’t forgotten being human,” Geralt said at last.

Yennefer stood at the door to the tent, peering out at the sunrise as it washed the rocky terrain in rays of citrus. When Geralt spoke, she didn’t turn, but he could tell she heard him, from how her posture loosened. She wanted to talk too.

Geralt would need to say more first, though. He didn’t like to talk more than was necessary, and she pushed his working definition of necessity every time they were together. 

“Yennefer . . .” Why was it so difficult? He cursed himself internally.

“I spent a lot of time feeling alone. Targeted. . . I was exposed and afraid. I know that you have felt those things too.” She turned away from the light, and her eyes were gentler when she looked down at him. “But Ciri is different. She’s young. She’s vibrant. She’s a princess, and Destiny has woven her into its tapestry very snugly. But she’s still a child in her heart -- a human child.”

And Geralt understood. 

Cirilla still flew on Destiny’s wind, at this moment, lost to Geralt. But Yennefer wanted him to neglect the pang he felt for her. Geralt was possessed with a burning need to tear the land apart in search of Ciri, to bring her to him safe and sound, and keep her by his side. He needed to protect her. 

But Yennefer asked of other things . . . what would he do when he had her? Would he pretend that he was fit to parent her? Would he train her up to be just like him? He thought about what he needed from her: her presence, her guaranteed safety. He yearned for her face and to know she was well. Yennefer was thinking about what a little girl would need: love, the feeling of safety . . .and what else?

Geralt thought back to when he was a little boy, with curly hair and a head full of mischief. “It is because she’s a child that I want to protect her,” Geralt said at last. 

Then, after a moment, he tried again. “That’s not the only reason, of course. I’m . . .” Again, he floundered. “I’m bound to her.”

Yennefer nodded. She came to sit on the edge of his cot. There really wasn’t room, but she was poised enough to accomplish it. “And she to you, then. But mark this, Geralt: if your plan only reaches as far as acquiring the girl, you have failed already in giving her safety. She will need things other than a sword to defend her.”

Geralt let this ruminate for a few moments, during which he was very conscious of Yennefer’s perfect posture and her warm breath as it billowed mistily into the sun-dappled air. 

She was right, he feared. He was unequipped for what Princess Cirilla of Cintra would need from him, regardless of their intrinsic bond.

“What would you have me do about it?” He asked, and as he spoke the words, he felt a hollow sort of creeping nausea working its way into his chest from his belly, twisting his heart into an uneasy tangle. When had he last asked for guidance from anyone? Loneliness seeped into him like a second skin forming.

Yennefer’s eyes rounded slightly, her pupils dark and soft. “For those of us with colder blood, it’s difficult to remember that children rely on warmth . . . even you did once.” And her hand grazed Geralt’s, where it rested over his chest. He didn’t dare shift to sit up -- there was barely room as it was.

He wasn’t sure what she wanted from him in this moment. So he lay there, like an invalid, and allowed her to hold her hand over his, cradling it like a shell. Her hand was cool, rather than warm, and the irony eased his loneliness. They two were of colder blood, it was true.

A moment later, she used her hip to push against him, and after a flicker of confusion, he obligingly shifted to the far edge of the cot to make room for her. 

She wordlessly arranged herself against him, winding her legs over his, with the thin wool blanket between. She smelled of the earth they’d trodden all day long yesterday, and of sweat, and fur, and perfume, and though her hand hadn’t been, the rest of her was warm and soft, and he had missed the acceptance of this. Of being held, being close, without fear or revulsion.

“I will never bear children,” she said softly, her voice like a feather floating downward in still air. “But I could help with yours.”

Where before there had been a blanket of unspoken resentment, now there was only the shaky fragility of two people attempting a pax. She was asking to be let in, to have the stability of a spoken agreement. No . . . that was a cold way to view it. She was looking for acceptance, exactly the same as he craved from her.

Geralt moved his arm up and over her back, holding her against him. His mind invited him to run his hand over her, to trace her lines and angles. But he remained still. She wanted an answer, not a distraction.

“When I find her, it will be for her to decide,” he said softly. “I have no intention of denying her her wishes, whatever they may be.”

Yennefer snorted unexpectedly. “Then you’ll definitely need a firmer hand around for balance.”

“I’d welcome it.” The words left his lips before he’d thoroughly considered them -- as so often seemed to happen when she was near him.

“Would you?” Yennefer drawled. 

She shifted so that the arm over him was crooked to allow her hand to reach his face. 

He held very still as her gentle fingertips brushed his jawline, tracing the sharp angles that he knew biased many against him before he ever spoke a word. 

She touched his scars and his stubble and the tension of his jaw with a methodical softness that soothed his nerves and left him sleepier than he’d felt all night. He could fall asleep under her right now, if she’d allow it.

But it was a firm hand she promised, not this softness. 

As her fingers traced back up and along the outline of his ear, Geralt gave an involuntary shudder, and she wasted no time in snatching a handful of hair up between her fingers, holding him in place beneath her. 

She knew he was wanting, and he knew that this was her expedition, and she would lead it. It was a familiar enough arrangement to him.

“I know you can be very disciplined,” Yennefer murmured close to his ear. Geralt felt goosebumps rising on his forearms and the back of his neck, and he let out a throaty breath when she pressed her leg between his. “But I’m curious just how far it goes. Should we test your patience, Geralt?”

“You’ve already, once,” Geralt said gruffly, thinking of the cool, pleasant water that he’d shared with Yennefer upon first meeting her.

Yennefer smiled, giving an airy chuckle and running a hand down along his side, to his hip, where she rested it gently. “I tested your compliance then. Now I’ll test your endurance.”

Geralt groaned into her neck, and black hair streamed down around his face as she pressed her forehead against his firmly, while her leg teased him with only the gentlest pressure. He felt himself pressing back, and lost himself in her skin, her testing tone, and her beautiful lips as she kissed his cheekbone, his jaw, his throat . . .

As if putting them under a spotlight, the dawn’s thin yellow splashed across their forms as they tangled together. Thoughts of the search ahead of Geralt, and of his own desperation, seeped out as she touched him, like letting blood from a wound. 

She drew him to her, every breath belonging to her, and Geralt thought, as her hand slipped underneath his clothes, that he could “endure” this forever, if she desired it. He felt more human when Yennefer’s lips met his, than anything he remembered from his youth could invoke.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first Witcher fic, so I'm just dipping my toes in. Please let me know what you think! :)


End file.
